Arthur Conan Doyle

No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely." ~ Sherlock Holmes

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.

It is decreed by a merciful Nature that the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously . . .

…but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.

It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy. It cost one man his reason, it cost me a blood-letting, and it cost yet another man the penalties of the law. Yet there was certainly an element of comedy. Well, you shall judge for yourselves.

Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to use all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment.

There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as any body-jealousy.

Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.

Some people's affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls.

Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.

I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.

Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.

I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.

At the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society.

The future was with Fate. The present was our own.

Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.

The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

Come, Watson, come!" he cried. The game is afoot.

Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.

The most serious point in the case is the disposition of the child." What on earth has that to do with it?" I ejaculated. My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining insight as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.